Squid

Squids are soft-bodied molluscs related to octopus and cuttlefish. They move through the water backwards and are one of the smartest invertebrates.

Sting Ray

Sting Ray

Stingrays are flat-bodied fish related to sharks. They eat snails, molluscs, fish and other small creatures. Their long poisonous barbed tail is uses if threatened.

Star Fish

Star Fish

Star fish typically have five arms. They can regenerate lost limbs. Star fish have no brain or blood. They use sea water like blood to pump nutrients through their bodies.

Leatherback Turtle

Leatherback Turtle

It is the largest turtle of them all. It is called a leatherback because it doesn't have a hard shell but has leathery skin instead.

Crown of Thorns Starfish

Crown of Thorns Starfish

These multi-armed starfish feed on hard coral. Sometimes they grown to plague proportions devastating large areas of coral. They have poisonous spines.

Sea Slug

Sea Slug

Sea slugs come in all shapes, colours and sizes and are usually translucent. Their bright colours are a warning to predators that they are poisonous.

Loggerhead Turtle

Loggerhead Turtle

This turtle is the largest hard-shelled turtle in the world. It feeds on shellfish, crabs, sea urchins and jellyfish. They are known to travel vast distances from their nesting beaches.

Green Turtle

Green Turtle

Green turtles feed mostly on sea grasses but they are one of the few animals that also eat the venomous box jellyfish.

Peacock Mantis Shrimp

Peacock Mantis Shrimp

The peacock mantis shrimp has the fastest punch in the world creating small implosions in the water that generates heat, light and sound. They can break aquarium glass with a single hit.

Boxer Crab

Boxer Crab

Also known as the 'pom-pom crab' or 'cheerleader crab' has a very creative way of protecting itself. It attaches two sea anemones to its claws and waves it about the scare off predators.

Nautilus

Nautilus

The Nautilus is related to the octopus. It moves by shooting out a stream of water through a siphon. The nautilus catches its prey with 90 long tentacles.

Whale

Whale

Humpback whales are air-breathing mammals that travel up from the Antarctic to give birth and feed their young. They can grow to 12 – 16 metres and weight around 36,000 kgs. These whales love to sing, breach and tail-slap the water.

Sea Urchin

Sea Urchin

Sea urchins are non-aggressive globe-shaped animals covered in spines which can be venomous. They have have five-pairs of feet with suckers on the underside of which they use for movement and adhesion. They are omnivorous.

Lion Fish

Lion Fish

A fish with zebra like stripes and a venomous spines and tentacles usually found near underwater caves and crevices. A sting from a spine can be very painful but not fatal to humans. They are carnivorous predators.

Dolphin

Dolphin

Dolphins are air breathing mammals related to whales. They are seem very vocal and playful.

Parrot Fish

Parrot Fish

?Parrot fish are so named because they have front teeth that are fused and look somewhat like to beak of a parrot. They use these teeth to rip of pieces of coral which they grind to up to extract algae-filled polyps inside. They can
also change sex.

Humphead Wrasse

Humphead Wrasse

These friendly fish with a large bump on their foreheads can grow to 2 meters and weigh 180kgs and live to 30 years.

Banded Coral Sea Snake

Banded Coral Sea Snake

These very venomous snakes swim underwater but still need to surface to breath. They have smooth scaled bodies and are excellent swimmers and divers.

Jellyfish

Jellyfish

There are more than 100 species of jelly fish on the Great Barrier Reef only a few are fatal to humans.

Types of Animals in The Great Barrier Reef Great Barrier Reef Species Diversity

The Great Barrier Reef has the world's most diverse range of underwater animals. These include:

• 1,625 species of fish • 360 types of coral • 3,000 types of molluscs (like giant clams and the sea slug) • 215 species of
birds • 14 species of sea snake • 6 out of the world's 7 species of sea turtle (all listed as threatened) • 630 species of echinoderm ( starfish, sea urchins) • 30 species of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) • 22 species of sea birds and 32 species of shorebirds • 30 species of dolphins and whales • 133 species of sharks and rays • 1,300 species
of crustaceans (crabs, prawns) • 450 species of hard coral • 40 species of sea anemones • 150 species of soft coral and sea pens • 100 jelly fish (blue bottle, box jellyfish) • sponges • crocodiles